by James Somers
Another hissing, broken glass howl. My eyes finally pop open. I see a bloody face directly in front of me. The mouth is open, the teeth red, dripping mucus. The eyes are completely bloodshot and wide with rage.
I practically leap out of my skin, trying to hop away from the sight. It’s then I realize I’m on a vinyl mattress on a bed slab coming out of the wall. I’m inside a boxy room—a cell. Every wall but the front is plain and white. A partition jutting out near the rear left wall hides a toilet and little sink.
The front wall of the cell is not made up of iron bars like a normal prison. Instead, a thick Plexiglas wall stretches from the floor to the ceiling. A line of finger size holes are visible near the top, presumably to allow oxygen in from the outside.
The setup reminds me of the cell where Hannibal Lector is kept in the “Silence of the Lambs.” Across the corridor from my cell, an identical cell holds this gruesome person. He howls with a voice so hoarse it sounds like he’s gargling broken glass.
I’m apparently safe inside my prison, and I’m glad for that, but I have no idea what’s going on. How did I get in here, and what is this thing clawing at its own cell wall before me? The last thing I can remember is the Hazmat men tackling and sedating me.
My back is against the wall. I’m crouched on the bed, as though I’m going to spring away if this thing across the hall comes after me. However, there’s nowhere to go.
I sit back and attempt to get my bearings, as the crazed person before me begins to bang his head against the Plexiglas barrier, leaving bloody prints and smears. Clearly, from the mess already on his walls, this has been going on for some time. His entire cell is covered in bloody smears and streaks.
The pounding continues with face and fists, even as a puddle of urine trickles down the orange jumpsuit pants leg to collect on the floor around his bare feet. A faint smell of defecation reaches me. A closer look at this creature’s cell floor shows me the source.
A feeling of sudden nausea threatens to overwhelm me. However, I’ve had nothing to eat in a while. I push back the feeling. The last thing I want is to vomit on the floor of my own cell and have to keep smelling it.
I huddle up with my arms around my ankles, watching the creature. The fury appears to subside a little, it’s attention turning this way and that, as though it no longer sees me. I wonder about that for a moment before raising one hand into the air.
The beastly thing notices the movement at once, flying into a new fury immediately. It throws itself into the clear barrier full force. I’m uncertain, but I think I hear bone breaking in that moment. The creature pays any pain or injury suffered no attention at all. However, a fresh cut appears on the side of its head, and blood pours from it, smearing the Plexiglas further.
A few minutes later, the latest fit subsides. It seems to calm, but I suspect this is only because it doesn’t see anything moving at the moment. I might try experimenting with that hypothesis later, but for now I simply watch. There is something vaguely familiar about this person, despite his wretched condition.
Recalling the events with the Hazmat team in the infirmary room with Nurse Uma, I remember pieces of the conversation she was having just before I became unconscious. An attack took place at St. Mary’s Hospital.
“The other boy brought in with this one,” one of them said. That other boy could only mean Tom Kennedy.
“He killed a security guard,” the man also said.
Then it clicks. I scrutinize the person before me again. The hair is matted, stained with blood. The face is bruised and the skin tone ruddy. The eyes are thoroughly bloodshot. The clothes have been replaced by the same orange jumper I’ve been made to wear, but it is him.
This terrifying, murderous creature beating his skull against the clear cell wall and defecating upon the floor is none other than Tom Kennedy. My shock is undeniable. My eyes grow wide with horror. How can this be?
I can only watch him, horrified. With no movement to stimulate him, Tom becomes listless, wandering aimlessly around his cell. He finds the toilet more than once behind the partition. He bends to it, coming up with his face wet and glistening red as dried blood washes partly away.
My mind shuts down. I cannot think. None of this makes any sense at all. My emotions are numb. I’m unable to muster tears, or anger, or anything.
I sit there on the bed they’ve given me. I’m not sure how long. I blink after a while. I’m not sure if I dozed off or not. However, I notice two things immediately that are different.
First, Tom’s clear front wall is no longer transparent. It looks tinted now. I’m reminded of the viewing side of a two-way mirror. I can still see Tom standing against a wall inside, but I’m not sure he can see out. The second thing I notice is two people standing in the corridor wearing Hazmat suits.
I jump to my feet from the bed. I see the graying beard and bald head on the man. Dr. Albert has come to see me. The woman next to him is someone I don’t recognize. I’ve never seen her before in this place.
“You see, Dr. Albert?” the woman says. “He hasn’t changed at all.”
Dr. Albert nods, considering me.
I find my anger now. “What’s going on here?” I demand.
Tom becomes agitated behind the darkened cell wall when I raise my voice. However, he’s disoriented, since he can’t see us. Dr. Albert raises his hands, attempting to quiet me.
“We don’t want them agitated,” Dr. Albert says.
I give him a puzzled look. “Them?”
I step forward to the clear Plexiglas wall, looking up and down the corridor. For the first time, I notice the other cells like this one. There must be at least half a dozen. Every one of them is occupied by a similar creature like Tom Kennedy.
I barely manage a whisper. “What’s happening?”
Dr. Albert taps a control on the wall outside my cell. The clear partition sinks into the floor, allowing me to come into the corridor. Dr. Albert motions for me to follow. As we walk down the corridor, I’m able to see into the other cells where more creatures wander around in the confines of their prisons.
The woman with Dr. Albert follows behind me. We round another corner and enter into an infirmary room. When the door closes, I ask my question again.
“What’s going on?”
“That’s what we’re trying to determine,” Dr. Albert says. “You saw your friend from the hospital?”
“Tom Kennedy isn’t my friend,” I reply. “He’s the one who attacked me and broke my arm. I was in the hospital because of him.”
“We have the report,” the woman says.
“Jonathan, this is one of my assistants,” Dr. Albert says. “Holly Tavers, this is Jonathan Parks.”
We don’t shake hands.
“There was fluid transfer between you and Tom Kennedy during your altercation,” Dr. Albert explains.
I look at his assistant, Holly.
“Your blood and his,” she says. “We’ve isolated a viral pathogen already in the blood of these individuals.”
“We’re fairly sure this pathogen is the reason for the rabid state they’re currently experiencing,” Dr. Albert says. “From what we can tell, you’re not infected, but you may be a carrier.”
“These other infected individuals are people Tom Kennedy attacked at the hospital after you were brought to us here in the Tombs,” Holly explains. “They received bites, scratches and other wounds that allowed this pathogen into their bloodstreams.”
I attempt to digest this information. “I’m not infected,” I say, repeating Dr. Albert. “But you think I might be a carrier?”
“We know you’re at least a carrier,” Holly says. “The virus is present in your blood.”
I tense at this information, but I’m not sure I believe what Holly is saying. After all, I feel perfectly fine. I’m not anything like Tom and the others.
“So, you think Tom infected me?” I ask.
“No,” Dr. Albert says. “We believe you infected him.”
I have no wor
ds to respond to this. How could I have infected Tom with something but not be infected myself? Sure, I’ve heard of people who carry diseases and don’t get sick, but nothing like this. Whatever this pathogen is they’re talking about, it turned these people into monsters in a matter of hours. Why would I not be like them?
“Am I immune?” I manage to ask.
“We don’t know that,” Dr. Albert says. “It may be you carry this virus in a manner that simply hasn’t infected you. Something about your makeup versus theirs. We’re not sure. However, you could still become infected, for instance if you were attacked as they were. It’s possible.”
I stare at the man blankly for a moment. “You really don’t have any idea what you’re dealing with, do you?”
The grave look on their faces tells me the truth.
“We isolated the strain easily enough,” Dr. Albert says. “But that’s only the beginning of our research. We’ll need your cooperation to continue.”
“I’ve seen movies about stuff like this,” I say. “They look like a bunch of zombies! You’re just going to keep me locked up down here with them?”
“Strictly speaking, these people are alive,” Holly says. “This isn’t a movie. These people aren’t dead. For a virus to live and spread it requires a living host.”
“My assistant is quite right,” Dr. Albert says. “We’re not dealing with fantasy monsters here, Jonathan. This is something more terrifying because it is happening for real. Had the SIS not jumped on this to contain it quickly at the hospital, we could’ve seen an outbreak unlike anything else we’ve faced before. The stuff of nightmares.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” I remind them. “Am I remaining here with them?”
“No,” Holly says. “Dr. Albert feels, while you are a carrier, it would be more harmful to leave you in here with them. We’re moving you to another part of the facility where you can be protected.”
I’m comforted a little by this. I have no idea what I would do if I had to look at those things all of the time. Seeing Tom in this condition has already scarred me for life.
I sigh. “Can you beat this thing?” I ask. “Can you cure them? Can you cure me?”
“With your help, it’s possible,” Dr. Albert says.
“Then I’ll help,” I reply.
“Excellent,” he says. “Then we’ll get right to work, after we settle you into a new living space.”
They turn, setting off for the door. A thought occurs to me.
“Dr. Albert?”
“Yes, Jonathan?”
“They did contain this thing at the hospital, right?”
Dr. Albert smiles. “Absolutely,” he replies. “Our people upstairs descended on St. Mary’s like a swarm when the attack occurred. We can rest easy on that part.”
Jurassic Park
The infected smash through the doors of the Natural History Museum. They are ravenous, and the lone police officer has not satisfied their hunger. Simple glass and steel are not going to stand in their way.
Vladimir maneuvers quickly through the expansive main hall. Towering over him, the skeleton of a huge dinosaur looks toward the main entrance where the infected pour through. The assassin passes the boney tip of the dinosaur’s tail as the first infected people begin to round the base of the skeleton. They come on fast, spotting him maneuvering in the half light.
Pushing his MP5K behind his back, Vladimir pulls his Sig Sauers. Rather than blast his way through this lot and garner the attention of even more infected in the area, he chooses to deal death silently. The suppressors make the weapons a bit more bulky, but infinitely more quiet.
The first comes at him. Vladimir drops her with a single precise shot to the forehead. Another two come around the other side, as he reaches the bottom of the great staircase. Equally good with either hand, he hits the first at twenty yards away, dropping the heavy man with his right pistol. The other is a youth, a boy, and he moves quicker. Vladimir kills him with a shot to the head from his left pistol at ten feet.
He turns and takes the massive staircase in leaps, bounding over three steps at a time. The creatures surge through the main hall behind him. He’s been spotted for sure. They pound over the stairs in pursuit.
Colorful exhibits with various animal models and skeletons encased in glass pass by in rapid succession as Vladimir races through the exhibition halls. He has no time for sight seeing. This is life or death and, for the first time in a long time, he’s a little concerned he could be on the receiving end of things.
He secures a dark place near a fire exit. Display cases before him provide enough light to constrict pupils and keep him hidden from prying eyes. At least, that’s the plan. Admittedly, he doesn’t know much about what is happening to these people, why they are becoming what they are.
Infected individuals can be heard plodding through the carpeted corridors hunting him. Two wander through nearby, passing the huge exhibit of a blue whale. Vladimir can let them pass and potentially face them later. But that isn’t his plan. He means to eliminate them one by one and escape this museum alive in order to get back to his mission.
Vladimir raises a pistol aiming at the nearest individual, a youngish looking man in slacks and a short sleeve shirt that are stained with gore, possibly from the ravaged police officer downstairs. However, even his suppressed guns aren’t completely silent. Instead, he replaces his pistols and chooses one of the throwing knives from his brace. He takes quick aim and lets it fly.
The gruesome creature goes down with a black throwing knife protruding from his right eye socket. There is barely a sound other than the muffled thump of the body hitting the carpeted floor. The infected woman prowling the display cases nearby notices, but doesn’t find a target to lock onto.
She passes by his hiding spot. Vladimir considers removing the knife from the man’s skull to conserve his resources, but he’s not sure he wants to handle it. It’s entirely possible he could become infected by it.
With his black leather gloves on his hands, he pulls another blade from his brace and creeps out of his dark corner. He deftly maneuvers through several displays, coming up behind the woman. Vladimir grabs a handful of her dark hair and rams the knife in at the base of her skull, piercing her brainstem.
Instant death. He lets go of the knife and her hair as the body drops. By his estimate, he still has about a dozen to eliminate, but he’s got no time to waste. Even if he kills all of these, he will likely face more outside in the city anyway. No use wasting ammo on these when he doesn’t have to.
Vladimir comes back to the fire exit. Sure enough, there are more infected roaming through the galleries, some coming his way. The door has a silver bar with a red sign indicating an alarm will sound if the door is opened.
The sound will certainly draw the crowd inside the museum. No problem there, as long as they don’t also open the door. Movie zombies don’t have that kind of problem solving ability, but this is real life and living people.
He can’t be sure what they know at this point, but the door is only opened by a push bar and a bit of pressure. They might open it accidentally, if nothing else. Still, it’s better than trying to circle back through the museum. Minimizing confrontation means minimizing potential infection, or death, and gets him back on mission faster.
Pushing the bar, Vladimir shoves his way quickly through the door. An alarm bell immediately goes off over the door with a flashing red light for good measure. He lets the door close behind him and moves along the fire escape to the stair that will lead him from the second floor down to street level.
Fortunately the alarm bell isn’t quite so loud out here, but he can’t waste time either. If these creatures are drawn by noise, then there will be more on the way already. Several cars are parked in the side alley here next to the museum. They don’t appear to be abandoned like those in the road, so he can assume they run and there are likely no zombies waiting inside.
Vladimir chooses the Porsche rather than the Vol
kswagen or the Mini Cooper. None of them have any real ramming capacity to them, but at least the Porsche has style and speed going for it. It’s a minor issue, but he just prefers the refinement.
He prepares to smash the window, but pauses instead and tries the handle. It’s open. Vladimir smiles. He’ll appreciate having the window still in the car, especially if something tries to attack his door.
The vehicle is an older model 911 Turbo. He pulls a pocket tool out of his coat and tosses his backpack and the MP5K onto the passenger seat as he sits down. The tool is roughly the size and shape of an average flat head screwdriver and works well in older model ignitions as a sort of master key.
Vladimir pushes the tool in with some force and turns the ignition switch. It pops and gives way, the engine starting up. He closes the door with the alarm bell still ringing in the museum behind him. The zombies haven’t come through the door yet, but it’s probably only a matter of time.
He releases the parking brake and slams the shifter into first gear, pressing the accelerator as he releases the clutch pedal. The engine growls behind him and the car surges forward with an abbreviated squeal of the tires. The walls of the adjacent buildings zoom past his windows as he approaches Cromwell Road.
An infected woman runs around the corner, coming straight for him. Despite the fact he is inside a vehicle, she leaps at him. He swerves slightly and she bounces off one side of the hood, ramps over the windshield and hits the pavement behind him in a broken heap. Still, when he finds her in the rearview mirror, the woman is back on her feet limping after him.
Incredible, he thinks. The desire to attack and feed is so strong it overcomes any thought of pain and injury. They possess no fear at all.
Learning his lesson from the collision with the double-decker bus, he slows before exiting the alleyway on the east side of the museum. Finding minimal traffic in his way, he launches out into the road, throwing the car sideways to right it. Infected individuals are present, as he expected they would be. Kensington must be overrun. Still, the Porsche is quick and agile. He manages to avoid them easily as he guns the engine, heading for Vauxhall Cross and the SIS Building.